• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

DONATE
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Our Bloggers
    • Commenting Policy
  • Reading Lists
  • Scholar’s Compass
    • Scholar’s Compass Booklet
    • View Recent Posts
  • Connect
    • Membership
    • Events
    • Donate
    • Contact Us
You are here: Home / Christ / Christ and the Academy / Tenure: Doomed?

Tenure: Doomed?

December 17, 2008 by Micheal Hickerson 1 Comment

My home state of Kentucky is considering ending tenure for its entire community college system. This news prompted Mark Bauerlein (professor of English at Emory and regular blogger at the Chronicle of Higher Education) to ask “Is Tenure Doomed?” at MindingTheCampus.com. As he notes,

[A]ccording to a recent report by the American Federation of Teachers, “contingent faculty members teach 49 percent” all undergraduate courses (Reversing Course: The Troubled State of Academic Staffing and a Path Forward, i). The proportion doesn’t include graduate student teachers, either, those doctoral candidates picking up courses as part of their training, which AFT estimates at 16-32 percent of the courses offered.

It’s an interesting essay. Among other things, he notes that:

Tenure is supposed to protect against-the-grain thinking so long as it observes academic norms, but after five years of graduate training, a year or two as post-doc or adjunct, then six years as an assistant professor, individuals fortunate enough to win tenure have other ambitions than challenging reigning ideas and practices.

At the ESN National Gathering at Following Christ, we’re going to host a panel discussion on “Preparing for Tenure,” with Ken Elzinga (tenured faculty at U Virginia), Christy Moran (tenure-track faculty at Kansas State and specialist in higher education issues), and InterVarsity President (and former business school dean) Alec Hill. It’s a challenging future for ESN members who want to pursue tenure-track positions, and we want to help you.

Do you have any questions for our panel? Even if you won’t be at the ESN Day Ahead, we’re planning on posting the sessions online in 2009. If you have questions about tenure and preparing for tenure for our panel, post them in the comments.

About the author:

Micheal Hickerson
Website | Posts

The former Associate Director for the Emerging Scholars Network, Micheal lives in Cincinnati with his wife and three children and works as a web manager for a national storage and organization company. He writes about work, vocation, and finding meaning in what you do at No Small Actors.

    This author does not have any more posts.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • More
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest

Filed Under: Christ and the Academy, Finding Work Tagged With: adjunctization, fc08, tenure

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Dave Snoke says

    May 16, 2009 at 12:17 am

    If tenure were ended, the immediate impact would be that conservative and evangelical professors would be the first to get the boot. Other professors could vote them out if they say anything out of line, and evangelicals are very much in the minority in academia. Be careful what you wish for!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Become a Member

Membership is Free. Sign up and receive our monthly newsletter and access ESN member benefits.

Join ESN Today

Scholar’s Compass Booklet

Scholar's Compass Booklet

Click here to get your copy

Top Posts

  • 5 Practical Ways to Avoid Cultural Domination and Neo-Colonialism in Western Missions
  • Faith and Reason, Part 3: Aquinas
  • The Message of Genesis 1
  • A Prayer for Those Finishing a Semester
  • Christian Views of Creation

Facebook Posts

Facebook Posts

Footer

About Us

The Emerging Scholars Network (ESN) is a national network within InterVarsity’s Graduate & Faculty Ministries which supports those on the academic pathway as they work out how their academic vocation serves God and others. We encourage and equip undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and early career faculty as they navigate each stage of their academic vocation and transition to the next step in or beyond the academy.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

Recent Posts

  • Confession
  • Temptation: The Little Lie
  • Science Corner: Finding the Proteins of Theseus

Article Categories

Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Contact Us
Member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students
Copyright © 2023 - InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA ®. All rights reserved.

InterVarsity, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, and the InterVarsity logo are trademarks of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA and its affiliated companies.